It has been amazing to read how your progress has been going. You should be VERY proud of yourself and know you are not only DOING it! To write it all down step by step will help whoever follows your lead an instructor already.

I'm deeply honoured by your high assessment of me, but please, let us not use the word instructor and me in the same sentence, it makes me very uncomfortable -i have 14 skydives, and 2 AFF to date..

I DO want to provide as much infoo from my perspective -as the STUDENT i am, remember that, my perspective is only what i believed i perceive, followed by what my coaches tell me to wrok on, improve, modify etc.

but back on this all, thanks ALL for your interest to see how this all goes along.

part 2 went like this

AFF#2 was decided to do out with one AFF instructor, and camera man (who was qualified to help to become the 2nd AFF if needed).

1) we had a bad day for weather, the day befiore I s[ent 5 hrs in the rain, under tarps, stil getting wet trying to put up a tent to live in, to follow DZ RULES re limited space etc. etc.

anyways that failed with the winds gusting me and tent and tarps away and off to lala land. 5 1/2 hrs of work drenched, was NOT GOOD CHOICE the day prior to the 2nd AFF.

#2 day of 2nd AFFM,, winds were strong all day and I was a'on hold' for manifest until student wind limits came.

#3 I was wanting to some day do a head down, to which my instructor discussed with me, and it was a possibility for me to do a tandem dive to practice other canopy skills IF there was time.

Time came. I was getting ready to gear up for tandem, when we went to plan B -back to doing student AFF dive since winds came down and we better go now or who knows what happens.

#4 Focus was good I beleive for me, during the clib\mb, and during the exit. we modifed the exit so I was kneeling on my legs at the doorway rather then hang my feet out the door. this permitted one instructor and a small doorway to deal with. plus camera man behind me. exit was good. i found stability. all is well.

got thumbs up to start excercises, we were to do the prasctice pulls again. switched hard deck for opening main, as well as wave off (up to 6,000f from 5.5f)

I immediately noticed that without A"rick the planet' on my right, Angus and I started turning ojn a 360 axis due to my backsliding due to my legs almost bent up to my butt-staying in one place and not flopping around was a blessing.

#5 Backsliding was corrected not only by me but Angus. thus when practice pulled all seemed doable, (we were turning about once ever 2 secs at slowest but my neptune recorded our fastest speed to be 148mph instead of 128 with the tqwo AFF's). That was fine. The real pull came, wave ooff weas fine. After that I dipped my head *chin down) to place my hand on it while looking for the pilot chute handle, i flipped us upside down so fast i have never moved that fast. it was a 'cool' feeling, no scariness panic etc, except arch, arch arch' was my mantra.

after review, Angus and Dave both tell me that Angus DID help me get back to belly down. When it was happening a) I felt like it was not a long time at all, (which it w3as not, it was more like a barrel roll) BUT my sense of awareness was NOT the best, i arched thought I got us belly down, and then waited for Angus to act. I knew we had blow past 6,000f, perhaps close to 5,000f and i knew if i blew past 3,000f i'd be goping golfing. So I thought it was best to leave AnGUS WHO surely had his heads on his shoulders, do take over a bit there.

I needed to focus on what to do next because if I did not see Angus I would have to go to main immediately and first try to check alt. inccase i've blown my hard decka and go to reserve.

SO when thigns do happen unexpectedly it is extremely important to know 'ARCH ARCH' MANTRA, and to focus on altitude, and what to do next - is it pull main , or go to emergency procedures.

enmd result, we are again modifying some sort of braces into the legs -we cannot do this fully without them.

-we are doing this dive again, these issues must be resolved.

-the landing is important tio plan. the radio man -DZO had different 'signals' then the previous one. different radios and also i heard and then not heard what was ebing said. it came and went, for me. i believe it was me, and my adrenalin.

so alternate plan incase of radio not working or these sort of issues, is to have. along with emergency landing plan.

our alternate plan was to look for Angus and he would fly my pattern so i woudl follow him,.

I had wrong harness/container. my chest strap was so high below my chin that it was pushing my head upward making a bit difficult for range of motion to see sideways or low doqwn.

I lost concentration (or hearing of?) the radio often, but knew sun was in the direction i needed to fly in iorder to get to where i was going. then i saw angus. i followed him in.

the landing was the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YES I WAS SOAKED! first of all, two geese decided to flhy directly across my final approach about 200f abnove ground. we misse4d each other :) then i saw the bowl and knew i was not making it there, unless i did something stupid like try a 30 degree or more turn below 100f.

so i had to land close to the runway, right into a big puddle.

the ophoto looks like i am sliding in a tobaggan of water on my butt, splashing water alll over me head on downward like in a shower... sliding and gliding quite a bit until i grabbed my right riser and opulled the chute down to the ground.

it was a great jump, despite the increased turning due to backsliding and the leg issues, despite flipping around back to ground and back again while trying to go for a pilot chute, it all went qwell and the landing was great.

this dive will be redone again. 'REPEAT' the log book says,. like it should.

Welcome to the world of being a student. Isn't learning new stuff great. I finally got to jump and passed AFF. Your turn is coming. There are some great jumps ahead for you. My last two jumps were diving exits and rolls and loops. Great fun. Thanks for sharing your story. Pat

Kudos to you. Great work. It sounds like your instructors/riggers/DZOs etc are all very kind helpful people. Keep up the good work and good luck with the arch issues, persistence will pay off and you will find the right system that works for you

Holy crap Minna! You are such an incredible inspiration. I never thought that someone who was paralyzed could accomplish something like this but boy was I proven wrong! I think its awesome what youre doing and will totally follow your whole A license progression. Keep up the great work!

This weekend, to put it bluntly -went TERRIBLE and then absolutely beautiful and exceptionally wonderful.

Angus and I tried that dive again (the one where I flipped around, with him flying head down trying to get me belly down so he could pull my parachute) on Sat.

-same results.

we modified things even. Tried to add leg braces, we lifted up the opening altitude from 5,500f up to 6,000f.

Same results except Angus held on to me, trying to stop me from flipping over, and I struggled with every technique-hips down, full arch, relaxed hands, arms back to compensate for backsliding, n head up- i could find to remain belly down-stable to pull. I blew past my opening, and Angus opened for me again.

Serious talk-he said 'if you were an able bodied diver i would say now-your done, im not going to endanger you by allowing you to continue'. He then said, 'i know you have a lot on your plate,-kids, illness, ass hole ex, on n on' and 'try to get those demons out of your head, because we will try this one more time tomorrow, and if you cannot pull at the correct altitude, with stability -each two tries prior he ended up pulling because I was becoming SO unstable trying to reach out there to pull that i would be flipping like a rag doll at 150mph towards ground and even if the body position was not 'terrible' during the automatic activation device opening, it is at 1,200f putting me directly into the beginning of my landing pattern, without legs up -which takes me about 2,000f of altitude to finally pull them up!-thats huge amounts-and i would have to land with them dangling, and we all know what that could mean).

Sat. night was the toughest of my life in some ways, and the only way I could deal with it, was to stay in my tent until 11AM Sun -one hr before that dive-my test-do I continue in this progression, or am I going to become a tandem passenger again.

I did the dive, it was just as bad, we enforced the safety even by putting two instructors and the left (Fuzzy Dave) side one was only to hold on to me when I was NOT trying to pull..... so he was there for back up to correct me if i started to roll/flip).

We upped the opening altitude again! to 7,000f! that last time I tried to pull -first two I could not accomplish it without the slight tilt ready to flip-so i arched again and am stable as a rock, flying still, not moving only arching (IF ONLY there was an automatic opening device set to 5,500f and i could belly fly, flat-stable until it does its job, and i can fly canopy) 'like bad-ass' someone said of my canopy skills -hope that's good... and two more divers telling me they are 'impressed', saying ' -THATS how you fly a perfect approach and landing softly"... thats huge compliments... but if i cannot pull that chute, i cannot do it.

so, my skydiving 'career' as a future solo student, and A license holder is yet another 'dream' gone. as the wind blows, where it goes -nobody knows;

I am (they still say I am a 'skydiver', but how does one define that?) now again a tandem passenger (with Angus telling me he was emotional on the way down with his canopy after he had to pull for me at 4,900f!!!! he tried to let me that much.... even though the agreed altitude was 7,000f!! .... he said 'I would be selfish and irresponsible if I allowed this to continue, but I will fly with you until the end of time, always, as you permanent strap on instructor... and your ash dive in the end"... and we cried.)

I believe him-if the best in the world cannot teach me this,' i cannot do it. i believe him because i respect him more then any other skydiver i know.

thats the weekend. but there is a nice surprise he organized for me, a HUGE one. he offered to do a tandem 'in a few hrs' he said, and i thought it was only him and me and we would double backflip exit and with him on top of me for the stability, i can even pull, and he said he trusts me completely to fly us in under canopy.

So up we go, and I see that ALL the most experienced jumpers, the best there is, AND my 'eye in the sky' Jeff King, whom i truly have come to learn to care so much for, and a second camera man-Steve, and fuzzy dave (my camera man I was told he would film me) so we get out, after one back flip, there is NO flips regardless of how much I try.-Angus sure IS stable, I tried to get that second flip but he overpowered me, to keep me stable. smiling at fuzzydave, while the others who all jumped after us. tracked down to.... -little did I know what was to come...

then all of a sudden I see Jeff king, coming up right beside me, and a 30 yrs of skydiving 'skygod' Steve-a camera guy whom I respect also shows up to my right- and my friends, the ones whom i have come to respect, and watch in awe as they train for in swooping, 'freakfly free fliers'-whom i would have become one of.. then canopy pilot experts of our DZ and elsewhere, and am so impressed with their flying... and who i look up to in this sport... ALL gathering around me, in a '9 way' circle with fuzzy dave flying between above us, below us,zooming his camera lens at me smiling like i never have before-seriously- and i was laughing and so so happy i have never felt such happiness...

i know it must be weird, that other events in my life not brought me this kind of happiness as it did, to fly down from 13,500f down to 5,500f with these people, all together everyone smiling and giving 'thumbs up' signs to me.

After we all came down there was group photos, someone ordered Pizza for everyone, and and beer-for people like me Wink, these people whom i so much respect, came up to me at one time or another tonight and told me several things from 'your the bravest person ive ever met', to 'most courageous', to 'you've got more balls then anyone', to 'ive thought of killing myself so many times in my life, and now i see you, and i will always think of this, and how brave you are, if i ever think to do that to myself again... your awesome.. you have NO idea what influence you've just had on my life', to 'you ARE a skydiver ALWAYS'.

but look on the bright side, you sound like youve got a fantastic instructor and a great group of friends at the DZ. To say you have courage is understating things and I can see why they have found you insparitional

ps// I know of a place in the UK that does paragliding and hangliding for people with similiar injuries to yours. So there may be other routes available to you to still fly on your own as Im sure the US will have similiar places

and that 55 sqf kitewing (kitewing.com to see what it is) -i'm their official 'gimp test pilot' for the kitewing, noone in a chair has flown one as far as the company knows. there are only two of us who even own one, but the other never informed them if he got himself to fly it or not... i flew mine this winter a bit, and summer.. well thats when the fun begins

I've gotten to well over 60f for at least 8 seconds at a time with the 12m one... its a little more sudden when it comes down sometimes then a parachute is....

thus i said in my intro forum post that skydiving saves my life because i didn't dare do those other 'flights' then...... when i was trying to learn this,

but now, i can learn more intense sh*t with the other means of flying' ground launching sounds like fun too!

while i can ride tandem with Angus if i got a bit smashed up doing them, but i could never have been able to skydive even with a headache, never mind bruises, blood noses and bumps, fracxtures like the other stuff gave me.....

i'll be ok. i'll fly tandem like mad~! and fly my other toys now again.

You have such a wonderful outlook on life. Thank you for sharing your adventures with us. You are truely an inspiration. You live life in a way that so many others never dream of. Keep living well and fly high with Angus.

Get yourself a C-kite, mucho power I fly 12m too (Naish Torch 07), you seem like a pretty little bloke (as am I)... got to love being overpowered

I've been following your thread since it started... I'm literally lost for words.

I've felt at a loss for words also.. thanks.

yup bow its what I strap myself to a windsurf board and get air over the lake in the summers, sledge hockey sled strapped to a snowboard for the winters... yes, at 33 kmph gusting to 66kmph storm that kite grabbed me and flew me on the edge of my world/life for several seconds before i got it under control.

skydiving, yes i would have wanted to continue this. it is not up to me to decide. i trust the man who is still my 'instructor', 28 yrs of skydiving and excellent reputation as a skydiver, and TM has no competition against anything i think-want. he rules. in my books/world. i will still jump. i was sent a link to a strong tandem rig which could be used for students with a drogue (link here on DZ dotcom). yes that I would try in a heart beat,. but without a TM, or JM it isn't going to help much.

thus i can only think of two things left to do, increase my wing loading on the kites, go to a 16 and 18 m ones, tandem dive like a beast, and practice canopy contro;, start spotting out buildings and antenna's and plan to jump solo. really solo.

Hey Minna (It's frank from Gan) It's too bad you have to stop the Aff... But keep on skydiving ! I'm happy I was there for your first solo jump and you really left your mark at our DZ... Thanks for the beer too :) Nice pics from the formation you did BTW,... I'm sure I'll see ya soon in a plane or in the skies ! źstart spotting out buildings and antenna's and plan to jump solo╗ ; I knew you were crazy but you really are crazyer than I tought :)

Hey Minna (It's frank from Gan) It's too bad you have to stop the Aff... But keep on skydiving ! I'm happy I was there for your first solo jump and you really left your mark at our DZ... Thanks for the beer too :) Nice pics from the formation you did BTW,... I'm sure I'll see ya soon in a plane or in the skies ! źstart spotting out buildings and antenna's and plan to jump solo╗ ; I knew you were crazy but you really are crazyer than I tought :)

Hey Frank,

Yes, I hope to be on the same load with you some day, flying Angus like a demon, head down.... n practicing that screamin landing the tandem canopy is capable of, if done correct. It sure starts slow, but builds speed faster... maybe I can bury a toggle under a heel and do the happy dance as the alti. dives.

No, I think I just need to get the rig I think of getting, and learn to fly on my own. I can fly paragliders fairly well, and the kites and such... never smashed myself up, except in trying to land thigns like a backflip with a motorcross bike (before even learning a superman ) landing on a truck serves me right!

Hope to jump in Gan again.... you guys have a sweet, clean, nice operation. well run, and a fun bunch of people. Next time I know to bring my big plane.... to play while waiting for my tandem ;)

oohh about that building or the antenna, no, crazy is all of us just for being here in that case.

where does 'crazy' start? 'Have you ever imagined what it must be like to jump off a cliff ? Maybe you have, but more to the point is, have you ever imagined what makes it possible for someone to put themselves in that position of wanting to jump enough, that they themselves now find themselves at the launch point. This does not happen by accident. This is the culmination, the coming together of fantasy, desire, faith, knowledge, ability, visualisation. Accepting a challenge of your own design, a brutal confrontation between ones personal life and safety and puting ones self out on a limb, far from the safety we naturally yearn for.' - Chuck

I feel that. I had hoped to achieve it through skydiving solo. it turns out not.

Please say hello to me next time you're at the dropzone, probably during the next Otter boogie at end of June. I'm Mark, supposedly Canada's first licensed deaf skydiver, trained at Gan.

If anyone up here is going to give anybody a chance, it's gonna be Gan. No other dropzones near me responded about taking a deaf guy like me, it was Gan that did. Here I am, successful 49-way at P3 with a hopeful bigway career ahead of me...

Sad to see you won't be able to make it further. Fly tandem and tunnel anyway. Who knows, you may rack up two dozen hours tunnel time. Get people to make you lose control in the tunnel, test distorted body positions, and learning to recover in the tunnel using only your upper body. With a thousand skydives worth of tunnel experience, you never know? Worse comes to worse, the tunnel time is fun anyway and you can just keep doing what you're doing, tandems and canopy, gliding, and more.

Please say hello to me next time you're at the dropzone, probably during the next Otter boogie at end of June. I'm Mark, supposedly Canada's first licensed deaf skydiver, trained at Gan.

If anyone up here is going to give anybody a chance, it's gonna be Gan. No other dropzones near me responded about taking a deaf guy like me, it was Gan that did. Here I am, successful 49-way at P3 with a hopeful bigway career ahead of me...

Sad to see you won't be able to make it further. Fly tandem and tunnel anyway. Who knows, you may rack up two dozen hours tunnel time. Get people to make you lose control in the tunnel, test distorted body positions, and learning to recover in the tunnel using only your upper body. With a thousand skydives worth of tunnel experience, you never know? Worse comes to worse, the tunnel time is fun anyway and you can just keep doing what you're doing, tandems and canopy, gliding, and more.

Thats a very good point John

Tunnel Time Mina...

Its not gonna be easy but theres a guy who lostd his legs in an accident whos in the Swedish free fly team so anything is possible

Please say hello to me next time you're at the dropzone, probably during the next Otter boogie at end of June. I'm Mark, supposedly Canada's first licensed deaf skydiver, trained at Gan.

If anyone up here is going to give anybody a chance, it's gonna be Gan. No other dropzones near me responded about taking a deaf guy like me, it was Gan that did. Here I am, successful 49-way at P3 with a hopeful bigway career ahead of me...

Sad to see you won't be able to make it further. Fly tandem and tunnel anyway. Who knows, you may rack up two dozen hours tunnel time. Get people to make you lose control in the tunnel, test distorted body positions, and learning to recover in the tunnel using only your upper body. With a thousand skydives worth of tunnel experience, you never know? Worse comes to worse, the tunnel time is fun anyway and you can just keep doing what you're doing, tandems and canopy, gliding, and more.

I was hoping to get down there for the boogie coming up on the long weekend but I need to check out where my strap on is going to be first... and folllow him, unless Will is willing to take me on a tandem at Gan. Maybe asking Tom n Will about that if it is a potentiality for me..... Thanks for the good advice and kind words.

I felt so comfortable with you all there, to jump there.

The wind tunnels are a place I cannot go. It is a place where anyone who has issues with things such as catheters, cannot go into wind tunnels. especially ones with recirculating air. I guess it isn't a total impossibility, with a full face helmet, depends, and duct tape at the wrists and ankles.. lol

seriously, I needed to get out of the tunnel my trip there came to an end short due to these issues. But it is totally understandable from the tunnels perspective.

Anyways, so no tunnel flying is never going to be an option for me. It's in the air or not at all.

I flew with Angus this Sun. Waited for 2 days to get in 2 dives, was worth every moment of it. Thankfully I got the dives in, because my body was starting to burn from the inside out, like it sometimes does (nerve pain) within minutes of landing that dive... I was not debriefed before my teeth were chattering from the pain. But that was my last dive, by then regardless of wether the pain was going to stop me or not. Then I took some medication. I wont even bring to the DZ the perscription medications, only tylenol ones with 8 mg codeine for me on diving days, at the end of the day.

I really truly am hoping to come to dive in Gan. It might work out. I'd like to come there this summer for sure.

Diving with Angus this time was not the same. I felt some level of insecurity of how my lower body seemed to feel like it was dragging us down, and we could not accomplish the backflip exit we used to be able to do (when my legs were tied at the knees), we just sort of wobbled around until Angus had grabbed my legs with his feet and then we sort of flipped after that. I feel my upper body pitching upwards when I try to move my arms to pull. I have a slow wave off response now under these conditions, it takes me 1,000f of alt. to get from the wave off till we are under an open canopy. It used to be 500f quite serious difference with the knee's tied together or not *and no leg braces of any sort*. I don't like the way it feels, but until I'm told to change that, I'm going to have to try to learn to like it.

I did notice a HUGE difference in how well I could execute the 360 turns after the tunnel as to compared to before the tunnel.

Also canopy control is getting better, now i was able to do a nice gentle stand up landing for Angus and a gentle sit down for me.

I liked my own landings better, although they were all butt slide ones. I felt comfortable with them.

I still hold hope that I could revive this project somehow.... but really see no other options at this point for me to fly alone except for looking for places to jump off myself.

For now,I am far away from that possibility. For now, I am enjoying flying the canopy, and becoming more aware in FF so that should be good... enough.... for now..... i guess.....got a 48" pilot chute sent my way....,., and an invitation to go live an hour away from my favorite mountain near Whistler.... but that is not what was on my plans.... I am not leaving here yet.

but never mind. You can still focus on the jumps with Angus and see where they take you..

Out of interest was the accident that left you in a wheelchair from a motocrosser? I may have misread that but Im curious to know as I used to race a lot of motocross and know a few good friends who have been badly injured. one is now quadraplegic sadly.